GNU Health is a free/libre health and hospital information system with strong focus on public health and social medicine. Its functionality includes management of electronic health records and laboratory information management system.
It is designed to be multi-platform, supporting Linux distributions and FreeBSD on the server side. It uses PostgreSQL as its database engine. It is written in Python and uses the Tryton framework as one of its components.
GNU Health has been adopted by the United Nations University. In 2011, it became a GNU official package. It was awarded Best Project of Social Benefit from the Free Software Foundation at LibrePlanet 2012, at University of Massachusetts Boston.
GNU Health is a project of GNU Solidario, a non-profit non-governmental organization (NGO) that works in the areas of health and education with free software.
History
GNU Health started in 2008 by Luis Falcón as a project for health promotion and disease prevention in rural areas. Its initial name was Medical. It has since evolved into a hospital information system, with a multi-disciplinary international team of contributors.
In August 2011, Richard Stallman declared GNU Health an official GNU Package. Following this, development was moved from SourceForge to GNU Savannah.
Usage
GNU Health is intended for health institutions and governments, with functionality to take care of the daily clinical practice, manage resources, and to improve public health.
Features
GNU Health uses a modular approach around the kernel, with different functionality that can be included to meet the health center's needs. Some of the main packages are:
Cultural impact
GNU Health was presented at World Health Organization session "ICT for Improving Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children's Health" in WSIS Forum 2013. GNU Health was awarded the Free Software Foundation's 2011 Award for Projects of Social Benefit. GNU Health won the awards PortalProgramas 2012, 2014 and 2015 for Most Revolutionary Free Software and Software with Largest Potential of Growth in 2012. GNU Health awarded Sonderpreis at Open Source Business Award 2016 In April 2022, GNU Health was included in the Digital public goods registry